Warp speed records & the warp scale?

[James Wright]

After watching the Voyager episode "Flashback", again!
I got to wondering, after seeing the scene where Janeway & Ensign Kim talking about the slower ships of Kirk's time, what happened to the speed records set by the Enterprise, the records another Captain wanted to break in ST:III TSFS?
After the warp speed scale was changed did another starship replace the Enterprise in the record books?

JDW

 

[Mike Farley]

While later ships may have traveled faster Kirk's Enterprise would still be acknowledged as first.

Many pilots have traveled faster than the speed of sound, but Chuck Yeager did it first.

 

[Timo]

But did Kirk break anything as memorable as the sound barrier?

Being the first to do warp 14.1 might not interest anybody in the 24th century, any more than we today would be interested in which aviator did 141 km/h first.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

It depends. It's possible that no starship at that point had ever travelled faster than Warp 12 or whatever. Computer simulations may have indicated that a ship would fly apart at that speed, but Kirk's Enterprise proved it wouldn't.

Who knows? The Enterprise's speed record of Warp 14.1 could have kicked off the whole Transwarp Drive Development Project or even the modified warp scale in TNG...

 

[James Wright]

Warp 14.1 was established by an influence other than Starfleet engineers.

JDW

 

[Ronald Held]

It still was a record, seeing as the ship did take it.

 

[James Wright]

I know that the maximum warp speed of the Enterprise-A was never mentioned in the movies, can anyone speculate as to what the E-A's top speed was?
How has warp technology changed from TOS to TNG?

JDW

 

[Timo]

I think it would be fun to think that Scotty in "Relics" actually spills the guts on this. Remember this exchange?

Scotty: "Laddie, ye need to phase-lock the warp fields within three percent or they'll become unstable." (Fiddles with controls; LaForge quickly intervenes and saves the ship from blowing up)
LaForge: "We use a multi-phase auto-containment field now. It's meant to operate above 3%".

What if the conservative TOS engineers kept their engines on "too tight a rein", and thus failed to observe the natural behavior pattern of warp fields? That is, they knew about the power minima and maxima at the low end of the scale, and thought that they went by a cubic rule - but they had too little experience about the higher end of the scale, as their engines were straining there, and the phase-locking kept them from falling into the real minima anyway.

A move from phase-locked to multiphasic engines would give a smoother ride at high speeds, as well as provide a breakthrough in understanding the warp phenomenon. It might or might not be related to something discovered during the Excelsior experiments, although I'd think Scotty would look even more hurt if it turned out the future technology was based on something he had so completely dismissed...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

I have a question.

Why is Warp 1 referred to as the speed of light?
Since Warp drive is an FTL drive to begin with and FTL signifies 'Faster than Light' ... not 'Exactly as light'.

Also ... in FC when Cochran performed his Warp flight, just before they jumped to Warp, Riker mentioned that they are approaching light speed and Zefram said that they are at critical velocity.

From what I gathered watching that scene ... they had to have been very close to the speed of light in order to breach the light speed barrier and travel somewhat faster than 300 000 km per second.

 

[Timo]

Why is Warp 1 referred to as the speed of light?
Since Warp drive is an FTL drive to begin with and FTL signifies 'Faster than Light' ... not 'Exactly as light'.

If you want to be that accurate about it, let's remember nobody has ever said warp would be "faster than light". (Nobody except you and me and a couple of thousand other fans, and other people who are not really part of the Star Trek universe, that is.) Starfleet might very well have some fancier term for it - because, at least per ST:TMP, warp drive also allows travel below the speed of light.

To be sure, though, nobody on screen has quite claimed that warp 1 would be exactly lightspeed, either. It might be quite a bit higher than that, really, considering that in ENT, Boomer ships incapable of warp 2 are still capable of interstellar flight in practical timeframes, less than the decades or centuries that lightspeed travel would suggest.

From what I gathered watching that scene ... they had to have been very close to the speed of light

It certainly didn't seem or sound like it. No optical effects associated with near-lightspeed, no time dilation, nothing of the sort. (If you go to Trekcore.com, there's an older version of the ST:FC script that's quite different from the filmed one in certain details, one of them being Cochrane's flight - they have some relativistic stuff there. But not in the final version.)

We don't know if there exists a "critical velocity" for other, more modern types of warp engine. Certainly there are warp drives that don't require sublight acceleration, as we have seen the ships in TNG, DS9, VOY and even the TOS movies jump to warp from essentially standstill. See for example ST5:TFF, and the bit where Chekov goes to warp just in the nick of time to avoid a Klingon torpedo.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Well the final version that got filmed had both Riker and Cochrane exclaim they were approaching light speed and as such they were at critical velocity just before engaging Warp drive.
Cochrane could have developed a low level deflector field to protect them from relativistic issues.

As for critical velocity not existing in 'modern' types of engines ... well that's besides the point since my question revolved around Phoenix warp flight which was 90 years before the NX-01, almost 2 centuries before Kirks era, and close to 3 centuries before TNG, DS9 or Voyager.

 

[Timo]

"Critical velocity" certainly seems to be characteristic of Cochrane's drive. One might argue whether one needs to achieve this velocity in order to go to warp, though - or whether it's just another wording for "lightspeed", another technologically fairly insignificant milestone in the long warp acceleration from near-standstill to maximum warp.

After all, Cochrane's vessel approached this critical velocity (which Riker seems to call "lightspeed") only after engaging its warp engines. The whole sequence of events between Cochrane's "Engage!" and the final flash seems to be warp acceleration: it's the warp engines that take the craft first to 20,000 km/s, then to "approaching lightspeed"/"critical velocity", and then to faster-than-light.

Which is all for the better, because no conventional rocket should be able to take the little ship to 20,000 km/s. Even granting that Cochrane's rocket wasn't entirely conventional (it reached escape velocity and a height of thousands of kilometers using one puny stage less than half the size of its payload), only mass reduction technologies would enable such speeds to be achieved by rocketry. And mass reduction is warp drive, or at least something requiring warp fields.

Basically, what Cochrane achieved in several minutes of acceleration is what modern starships achieve in less than a second: engaging of warp engines leading to FTL velocities. Cochrane didn't need to be at some sort of "initial velocity" in order to engage his warp engines in the first place.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

But the thing is ... he did.
I guess that the biggest issue with the Pheonix was that it's warp core took time to power up and prepare the nacelles for warp flight.

And to my memory, the Warp engines flashed (which took the ship to Warp itself) AFTER the conversation of approaching 'light speed and critical velocity' took place.

 

[Cid Highwind]

The "Warp flash" when reaching the speed of light might just be something similar to the "sonic boom" when reaching the speed of sound - simply an effect of a specific speed, but not meaning that a different type of propulsion is being used at or from that moment.

 

[Timo]

But the thing is ... he did.

Need a velocity before engaging? No, he didn't. He achieved that velocity after engaging the warp engines.

That's an interesting sequence of events, really. First stage separated, nacelles deployed, final checks made, then the warp engines engaged with the flip of a single red-covered switch. Slow if shaky acceleration begins, with 20,000 km/s quoted soon thereafter; warp nacelles are glowing. A glimpse at a display panel that says "SPACE WARP ENGAGED". Riker says "approaching lightspeed", Cochrane says "critical velocity". Nacelles glow brighter than before for a split second. Warp flash, warp streaks. A few seconds of flight, then shutdown.

Cochrane doesn't flip any switches between engaging the warp engines and slowing down. Granted, lots of switch-flipping might have been cut from the action, but more specifically, there is no manipulation of any controls during the crucal moments where the ship eventually dives into that warp flash. It seems that the original engaging was enough.

I guess that the biggest issue with the Pheonix was that it's warp core took time to power up and prepare the nacelles for warp flight.

Might be that. Or then the warp engines really took their time whisking the ship from virtual standstill to past lightspeed.

The "Warp flash" when reaching the speed of light might just be something similar to the "sonic boom" when reaching the speed of sound - simply an effect of a specific speed, but not meaning that a different type of propulsion is being used at or from that moment.

Indeed. At least it doesn't seem to require any action from the part of the crew.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

About the Warp 14.1 speed in "That Which Survives":

- This speed was achieved, and briefly sustained, by the Enterprise under her own power. The Kalaandan holographic saboteur Losira did tamper with the engines to get them "running wild" (Scotty's words) and whatever technique holo-Losira used required "the power of our main phaser banks to do it" (again, Scotty's words).

- Captain Stiles of the NX-2000 Excelsior did boast that he would break the Enterprise's speed records, but he did not say which records. Was he referring to "That Which Survives", or was a more recent record set by the refit Enterprise? Was he going to break the record with Excelsior's prototype transwarp drive? Or was he going to do that with conventional warp drive? We'll never know.

----------------------------

And, indeed, which incident amounted to "the Enterprise's old speed records" is never made clear. Was it "That Which Survives" (Warp 14.1)? Or could it have been when the Kelvans hijacked the ship in an attempt to return to Andromeda ("By Any Other Name")? Andromeda is supposed to be about 2.5 million light-years away. To get there in less the 300 years would require travelling at speeds in excess of 8,333 times the speed of light. If you accept that TOS warp speed is the warp factor cubed and multiplied by the speed of light (I don't), then 8,333c would be Warp factor 20.274.

 

[Timo]

...The Kelvans did specify which warp factors Chekov should use, though. First it was warp eight, then warp eleven till the barrier. And after they went through the barrier, no further instructions about warp speed were given. Did the Kelvans themselves adjust the drive (and why didn't they do so originally, but instead trusted Chekov?) - or is sustained warp eleven enough for going to Andromeda in three centuries?

If the figures quoted for that warp 14.1 jump are correct, then warp 11 should be plenty. After all, Spock in "That Which Survives" hoped (and Scotty with some reservations seemed to accept) that the ship would span the 990.7 lightyears in reasonable time - and, apparently thanks to the sabotage that made the ship go warp 14.1 for a while, the ship did reach the stranded landing party within mere days. That's much better going than 8,500 c!

The cubic scale isn't really supported by any onscreen material beyond (possibly) the very lowest warp factors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

Yeah, the cubed TOS scale seldom matched the content of TOS; if the original starship Valiant was only a low-warp vessel (apparently, the first of her kind), launched 200 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and lost at the galactic edge, there's no way she could've made it the the Negative Energy Barrier if Warp 1-2 was only 1-8c.

Cochrane's Formula in STAR TREK MAPS was far from perfect, but at least it seemed to try to explain why warp speeds seemed different in different regions of space. I would modify Cochrane's Formula to make Cochrane's Variable react to interaction with dark matter and/or dark energy. TREK seems to have already assigned a level of mystery and drama to these phenomena anyway.

I agree that we never heard Rojan give an order for anything higher than Warp 11, but we also saw him sitting in Kirk's chair on the bridge without Kirk present. That gave Rojan plenty of opportunity to order higher warp factors once the Kelvans completed their "neutralizing operartion" on the Enterprise crew.

 

[Ronald Held]

The Cochrane factor may be higher in intergalactic space.

 

[Wingsley]

A reasonable possibility.

Kirk said it would take "thousands of years" at maximum warp. Wonder what "chi" would figure out to...